How Lynn Sherr got to know the real Sally Ride

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NASA/NYT

Sally Ride monitors control panels from the pilot's chair on the flight deck aboard the space shuttle Challenger during mission STS-7 in a June of 1983 handout photo. Ride, who was the first American woman in space on the STS-7 mission, died on Monday, July 23, 2012, at her home in San Diego. She was 61.

In January 1981, journalist Lynn Sherr was assigned to cover NASA’s new breed of astronaut for ABC News.

The agency was training women and minorities for space, breaking a quarter-century of white male fighter-jock types. Sherr was on one side of the interview room, and Sally Ride, who would later become the first American woman in space, was on the other.

“We just hit it off,” Sherr says by phone from her apartment in New York City. “We just clicked. Over time, she came to trust me.”

The working relationship between Sherr and the woman who cracked the celestial ceiling evolved into a 30-year friendship, part of the inspiration behind Sherr’s new book, Sally Ride: America’s First Woman in Space, which Sherr will be discussing in Dallas on Wednesday. The two friends often enjoyed pizza and beer at the home Ride shared with her then-husband, astronaut Steve Hawley. On weekends, they vacationed together, sitting in the sunshine, “laughing a lot.”

But Ride was also fiercely private and scrupulously guarded her personal life. It was not until after her death in July 2012 that Sherr — and the rest of the world — learned that Ride was gay and had had a partner for nearly 30 years.

“This book was more personal because it had to do with my feelings about friendship,” Sherr said. “While I was a little surprised, and a little hurt when I learned about Sally’s relationship with Tam [O’Shaughnessy], I realized it made me sad that I could not share that relationship.”

At the prompting of O’Shaughnessy, Sherr began the biography two days after the astronaut’s death from pancreatic cancer. Sherr says researching and writing about the life of her friend was a bittersweet process.

“I knew she never wanted her biography to be written while she was alive,” Sherr says. “Therefore, the very act of writing it meant she was dead. That made me so sad. On the other hand, I liked the fact that I could do this for the record, that I could do this in a way I knew was accurate and that people would get the right story.”

The memory of their three-decade friendship pushed Sherr through the book-writing process, she says.

“When she first flew, I did this interview with her,” Sherr says. “I asked if she felt under pressure. She said she did feel pressure not to mess up. I felt the same thing. I didn’t want to mess up. This is Sally on the record. There was a lot of mythology that needed to be corrected.”

Part of that mythology includes the popular belief that Ride had dreamed of space her entire life, that she was born with “the right stuff.” Actually, Ride never considered being an astronaut while growing up in Southern California. She aspired to be a professional tennis player, which almost blocked her career in science.

Ride transferred to Stanford before the end of her sophomore year at a college near Philadelphia and shifted her focus to physics, hoping to be a professor. The NASA astronaut application happened on a lark.

“She saw the ad and thought about it for a nanosecond, and off she went,” Sherr said.

A former student of Ride’s at the University of California at San Diego characterized her as “a scientist that took a detour through space,” which Sherr finds fitting.

“This is a young woman who wanted to be a tennis player,” Sherr said. “When she realized her forehand wasn’t good enough, she dove back into physics, which led to making space history. It’s the idea that you don’t dwell on the past; when something doesn’t work out, you move on. What a great lesson that is.”

Sherr says she hopes Ride’s story is an inspiration to all readers, whether they are NASA scientists, enthusiasts who cheered on her first launch in 1983 or students who have never heard about her before.

“It didn’t occur to me that I would be inspired by my friend while writing this, but I actually learned things from her,” Sherr said. “I learned from Sally that you can fly without ever leaving Earth. I learned from her extraordinary ability to seize the moment. I hope others will, too.”

Plan your life

Lynn Sherr will appear at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Highland Park United Methodist Church, 3300 Mockingbird Lane, Dallas. Free; books available for purchase. A 6 p.m. reception, by reservation only, costs $30 per person and includes an autographed copy of the book. 214-523-2240. hpumc.org/authorslive

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